Life Transplanet

This is kind of disturbing and slightly disgusting. But this morning as I was grabbing a banana on my way to work, I looked out the back door and saw Kitty really interested in something in the grass. As I watched, I saw him pounce on something and come up with a mouse in his mouth. I wanted to get a picture of our little mouser, so I grabbed my camera and went outside. When he heard the door open he kind of freaked out and dropped the mouse and couldn’t find it. I could see it just sitting still in the grass.

As I approached it to see if it was still alive like I thought, it bounced up and tried to scurry away. I put the camera to “record” and just watch what happens….

I have seen them get little baby mice before, but never a full-sized one like this. It was like I was on the Discovery channel or something.  You can tell I was kind of grossed out watching it, but utterly fascinated that a chicken could do this! Kitty was kind of like, wow…I’m not going to get involved in that… If anyone tells you chickens are vegetarians, you can remind them of this video! Chickens are not ferocious to you or me, but watch out if you are a mouse!

Henrietta with her catch of the day

Now that it’s summer (or feels like it), that means yard work. Mostly for Britton, but I am very good at foreman activities like pointing and picking out spots where things should be planted, removed, etc. Basically, I just stand there while he works. I am always two projects down the line while Britton is like, “Wait! Slow down. Let me get this one done first!” I got this Fortune Cookie fortune the other day and while it amused me, I don’t think it was as funny to Britton…

Anyway, the next project I found was another great fruit tree at Home Depot the other day. A Fruit Cocktail tree! It is a three-in-one tree: nectarines, plums and apricots! How cool is that?! They grafted them together to be space-saving for smaller yards like ours.

So, then we proceeded to find a place for the new tree. We had just the place…where an old tree had died. I think we had pruned it back too far and then it split in two. It wasn’t coming up with any leaves and it was really dry and crunchy, so it needed removed anyway. But it was quite the project.

First Britton had to saw the old tree by hand which wasn’t too bad, but still took some time. Then we (by we I mean he) had to remove the stump by spading all the roots in the vicinity. I, meanwhile, photo documented…

Britton working on the stump, with the rest of the tree to the right

The stump with the rest of the tree behind it

Finally, we got it all out and just needed to plant the Fruit Cocktail tree. Voila!

New Fruit Cocktail Tree

Overall, it was a nice weekend. We spent some time with our niece and worked on the rentals a little bit. We also rode our bikes to my parents’ house and planted a few seeds in the garden. It really feels like summer with temps in the 80s and lots of sun. I love it!

Since the weather has been nicer and nicer and the sun has been coming up earlier and earlier I’ve been enjoying the mornings a lot more.  The bad thing is that usually I wake up, shower and have to go into work.  I decided that today I’d wake up and go for a bike ride while Cassie slept.

Over the handlebars

They’ve been building this trail for a few years.  It goes from Island Grove Park (In Greeley) all the way thru Windsor Colorado.  I didn’t quite take it to Windsor as that is quite a ways away (20 miles).  Round trip I did about 10 miles.  I took a little video too.

I love this time of year, when it gets more and more reliably warm. The plants are happy, the animals are happy, and we are happier too! We’ve been enjoying our daily salads straight from our greenhouse and garden. There is so much lettuce: salad bowl lettuce, red and green leaf romaine, spinach, bibb and more that we’ve even been giving some away. We also have been eating radishes and I ate my first greenhouse strawberry of the season today at lunch.

The other day Britton went out to gather the goods for a salad and we had a few uninvited guests to our salad lunch. Slugs! They were small, but nonetheless were enjoying our leafy greens. We picked through it and checked each piece and came up with about 4 slugs. Luckily we have slug-o-matics called chickens who devoured them in a snap.

Close up of a slug on Britton’s hand

Then, of course, after a good meal, everyone wants to take a nap. So it was siesta time. I wish I could take a siesta every day!

Chicken Siesta

Cat Nap

I love peaches. They are one of my favorite fruits. So, I somehow got it into my head that I wanted a peach tree. We went down to Lowes but they only had cherry and apple trees, which are great too, but no peaches. Actually, we recently added two mini-dwarf honeycrisp apple trees to our backyard! But as of yet they are just barely leafing. So on our quest for the peach tree I suggested to Britton that we go to Eaton Grove nursery before heading off to Estes. It was so fun.

Britton didn’t think that they would have peach trees, but lucky for me, we found a cutie with nice leaves and some mini-peaches all covered in fuzz. It is called a “Frost Peach” so it will do a little better than some other varieties of peaches in this area of Colorado. Colorado has great peaches, but most are found on the western slope (Grand Junction area).

I can’t wait to take a bite out of one of our luscious peaches or apples! I guess this is kind of like Puerto Rico with all the fruit trees around, just different types of trees, and you can’t eat from them year round.

We planted it in our front yard so that it would have more sunlight

Close-up of the little mini-peach babies

I love visiting nurseries and could spend WAY too much money there if I didn’t have discipline. But they had wonderful flowers, shrubs, food plants like peppers, tomatoes. Everything. It was so fun.

They had some gorgeous roses

If you are unfamiliar with the reference in the post title, I thought I’d share this song. It was popular when I was in high school.